CHW 3M 2012: Assignments, Game Design, and a (Game) Narrative

I’ve been thinking about potential assignments for our ancient Egypt unit. At the moment, I am leaning towards an infographic. Here is a very simple example that is actually about Egypt. For this assignment, I’d like to something like the School 2.0 poster we have at the back of the class. Your task would be to use your infographic to explain how Egyptian society functioned. Just an idea….we can talk about this later.

Game Design

On Thursday February 23rd, we will have a video chat with Dr. Rob MacDougall, an expert in history and gaming. This is a really exciting opportunity for us. Our discussion will include:

How do games teach us?

What do historical games offer the player?

What can students learn from the process of game creation?

How important is historical accuracy in video games?

Your Task Today: (A Game) Narrative

Today’s task is to create a narrative based on the readings outlined below. Your narrative will be at least partially based on the story last year’s class constructed for the video game. Don’t worry if you know nothing of video games; you can approach this task like any other piece of creative writing.

The basic scenario…

The main character is a nameless foreign thief hired especially to break into the tomb of a recently deceased Pharaoh. The thief has travelled to the small town next to the pyramid to meet up with the rest of the criminals.

The criminals have been working for nearly a year to create a secret tunnel from one of the nearby family tombs to the Pharaoh’s (this was surprisingly common, as accessing the Pharaoh’s tomb from the main entrance was virtually impossible thanks to its proximity to civilization)

The head of this shady operation has asked the thief to complete a series of small tasks; the completion of these tasks will prepare the thief for the mission.

Here are the missions. You may write these as a narrative (a story) or as a dialogue (like a movie script or a video game cut-scene). Regardless of your choice, you will need to write enough to demonstrate insight into each topic:

The thief can’t break into the pyramid if its construction is a mystery. Thus, the thief needs to find out about Imhotep from the master builder of the Pyramid (Imhotep is found on page 57-58 ).

Some of the traps in the pyramid will mirror the struggle Egyptians believed the soul faced on its journey to the afterlife. Thus, the thief needs to find out about the Ka, Ba,Ankh, and the burial process from a local elder or priest (Ka, Ba, Ankh, and the burial process can be found on page 68-69, 72 ).